The crazy is now a little less crazy and I’m feeling a little bit more prepared. I actually have my costumes completed ahead of time this year. I have everything packed except those items I’ll need between now and then.  The pocket program is out (here) and I’m beginning to get an idea of which panels I want to attend and what I want to see.

So far, the big, main panel I definitely want to see is the one with James Randi, probably the one on Saturday at 1:00 PM.

But as for everything else, there’s still a bit of decision making to do. So far, here’s the breakdown of the panels that were of interest to me, and I will likely be attending, time constraints, line-length, and need to sleep and eat allowing:

Friday:

• 10:00 AM: Wikileaks Panel
• 1:00 PM: Kai Owen Torchwood Panel
• 4:00 PM: Quantum Leap Panel or Babylon 5 Panel
• 5:30 PM: The Guild Panel with Vork and Zaboo
• 10:00 PM: Writing and Marketing Same Sex Fiction Workshop
• 11:30 PM: Skepchick Party or “Gay Themes in the Whoniverse” or SLEEP

Saturday:

• 8:30 AM: Breakfast with James Randi
• 10:00 AM: DragonCon Parade!
• 1:00 PM: James Randi Panel
• 4:00 PM: Stan Lee Panel or Firefly Panel or Steampunk World Record Photoshoot
• 5:30 PM: Adam Savage Panel or Chuck Panel
• 7:00 PM: Firefly Redemption Fan Movie Screening
• 10:00 PM: Alternative Sexualities in YA Lit
• 11:30 PM: “We Write the Weird Stuff” Slash Fanfic Writers Party

Sunday:

• 10:00 AM: Robot Battles
• 11:30 AM: An Hour with the Tams Firefly Panel
• 1:00 PM: Kai Owen Torchwood Panel (if we don’t make it to the first one)
• 2:30 PM: Stan Lee (if we don’t make it to the other one) or Cyborg Panel
• 4:00 PM: Adam Savage (if we don’t make it to the other one) or Steampunk Makers Exhibition
• 7:00 PM: Babylon 5 Panel

As I’ve said, I’ll be liveblogging the Con and the panels that I attend, so watch my twitter feed or this blog if you want to Attend Vicariously through any of these.

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Yes, yes, I know I’ve been a bad blogger lately.

Truth is, I’ve just been crazy busy. My days have been pretty much going like this:

• Get up, get dressed, feed cats.
• Go to work. Do work.
• Come home, feed cats, Exercise!
• KNIT! SEW! KNIT! SEW! COSTUMES MUST BE DONE!
• Collapse into bed.
• Repeat.

Somewhere in the middle of this, I also received my first commission. That is, someone asked me to write a story. In return for this story, I will get money.

This terrifies me. This is the exact opposite of how my story writing usually goes. Usually, I write the story first, and then look for a place to sell it,  receiving the requisite handful of rejection letters (or emails) before I find a place for it, if I ever find a place for it.

This is the first time someone’s offered to pay me before the story is even written. What if the story I write isn’t what they were really looking for? What if they don’t think it’s really good enough to merit their payment? Eeeep! There’s that panic!

So the last few weeks pretty much every ounce of spare time that I’m not spending working on my costumes for DragonCon (OMG ALMOST HERE), I’ve spent working hard on that story.

So in the middle of all that writing and sewing and knitting and writing and sewing and knitting….there hasn’t been a lot of room for blogging. Worry not, though, folks! I think I’ll queue up some excerpts from “The Boy Ran” for the next couple of weeks, and I’ll be liveblogging DragonCon again this year!

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As most of you know, I’m an avid attendee at DragonCon every year. For those of you who don’t know what DragonCon is, it’s the largest general Pop Culture Fandom Convention in the Southeast, held on Labor Day weekend every year in Atlanta, Georgia. Most people would call it a sci-fi convention, but to do so would be to narrow it far too much. If there is anything in this world to geek out about, no matter what it is, DragonCon has it. There’s something for every sort of fan there.

The one unifying theme of DragonCon is that it is where geeks go to be geeks, no matter what sort of geek they are.

So here goes, the Annual (s)IB Survival Guide:

1. BRING COMFORTABLE SHOES!!!
   

   I cannot stress this enough. Unless you’re an athlete or work out regularly, you’ll probably be walking more in this one weekend than you walk all year. Total. And no, that’s not hyperbole for many of us. As cute as the thigh-high boots with the stiletto heels might be, you’ll hate yourself after a weekend in them.

2. MAKE A SCHEDULE WELL AHEAD OF TIME – Download the schedule grids as soon as they are available online and decide what you want to do, when.  Work out a tentative schedule for your Priority must-see items, plus some contingency options in case you don’t get into your first option. Leave time in your schedule to wait in line 3-5 hours for the big name panels. Make sure to allow time in your schedule to do those important things like bathroom breaks and eating. Remember: You cannot do everything. This is absolutely impossible, barring the invention of the time machine and/or the interference of our favorite Gallifreyan.. There will be things that you will miss.
   • The DragonCon schedules are still subject to change even during the convention. Be sure to pick up a copy of the Daily Dragon every morning (or afternoon, depending on when you wake up) to check on any changes that might have been made for the schedule that day. They are available at the info desks.
3. YOU WILL WAIT IN LINE:  Yes, I know that I said that in the schedule section, but you will be waiting in line a lot.  Leave your grumpy back in the hotel room and try to make the most of it and it can be fun.  You’re likely to meet some neat people in line, and you can costume-watch.
   • If you’re with a large group, it is acceptable to wait in shifts, particularly for families with small children.
4. DON’T LOSE YOUR BADGE – Your badge is required for admittance into any convention event, and you will have to pay for a new one if it gets lost.
5. PACK A SURVIVAL KIT – Bear Grylls might go into the wilderness with nothing but a shirt on his back, but you don’t want to go to DragonCon unprepared. Here are a few things that might be good to have on hand:
   • A basic Foot Care kit, including moleskin and bandages for blisters, gel shoe inserts, etc.
   • A basic First Aid kit, including, again, bandages, antibiotic ointment, pain reliever, antacid, allergy medicine/decongestant, any prescription medications, etc. Add condoms in there, if you think you’re likely to hook up. Be safe!
   • Bottle of hand sanitizer (to avoid the Con Crud)
   • Sunscreen. You can expect Atlanta in August to average over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Getting burned, if you’re prone to it, isn’t fun. Due to the same circumstances, extra deodorant is a wonderful thing.
   • An easy to carry and refill water bottle (and single-use flavoring pouches like Crystal Light makes, if you don’t want plain water) to save you money and help save the environment, by avoiding tossing plastic water bottles.
   • Bring your own snacks. They’ll be much cheaper than anything you can get at the stands in the hotels.  Double that for alcohol. The liquor stores and hotel bars love DragonCon goers, but you’ll spend anywhere from 3 to 5 times what you’d spend at home for the same drink.
   • A notepad and pen, for making notes for your blog (heh) and, of course, to write down contact info if you meet anyone neat.
   • Camera and lots of extra batteries if it’s not rechargeable. Bring twice what you think you’ll need.
   • For more suggested items to bring, see the Packing List on the DragonCon Wiki.
6. Set up a location and landmark to meet at if you get separated from your group.
7. DragonCon offers a Con Suite, where there is always something cold to drink and usually snacks, all of which are free. This year, the Con Suite is in the Hyatt, rooms 223 and 226.
8. SET A BUDGET AND STICK TO IT: I withdraw a specific amount of “mad money” each year to take to DragonCon. I am allowed to spend that money, and only that money, no more.  Keep your money and a picture ID safe in a money-belt, which are handy for tucking into pocketless costumes. Stick a list of emergency contacts in there too.
9. BE POLITE: I have heard so many horror stories told by actors after ComicCon.  On the other hand, I’ve heard tons of good things from the actors and guests about DragonCon. Let’s keep it that way. When in doubt, follow the advice of the Great Geek God, Wil Wheaton, and “Don’t Be a Dick.”
10. COSTUMERS:
    • Be sure to start your costume well ahead of the convention! You don’t want to be staying up late the night before you leave to finish your outfit.  I usually start my costumes about 2-3 months ahead of time, depending on how time consuming and/or expensive they might be. My Tom Baker Scarf, however, I’ve been working on since Christmas.
    • Bring a needle and thread and some safety pins, just in case, and some Febreeze to freshen it up if necessary, also some color-safe stain remover, if your costume can handle it.
    • Take into account your body type when planning your costume! Yes, there are a lot of totally toned young hotties going around in nothing but a few bits of string, but honestly, no one wants to be a couple steps down on the escalator with their nose inches from a stranger’s uncovered ass, no matter how toned it is.  As insulting as it may sound, I know no one wants to see my cellulite, and I’m fairly sure no one wants to see yours either.
    • I have heard, though I would not vouch for its veracity, that it is legal for women to go about topless after 10 PM in downtown Atlanta, provided their nipples are covered with pasties or the like. However, I do not recommend it, as I have seen some police officers get a bit testy about it. If you’re going to go uncovered or painted and are particularly well-endowed, carry a shawl or covering of some sort to wear until you get to your party.
11. LODGINGS & MISC.: Unfortunately, if you still don’t have a hotel room, with 29 days to go, you’re probably just SOL.  I am aware that a large number of people had their reservations canceled after the hotels were sold to become dorms, so there is an even larger number of roomless searching this year than usual.  The best place to find people willing to share a room and/or anything else you might have a need to ask is at the DragonCon Livejournal Community.

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Before I got into CRPGs, before I ever logged into my first MUD, my first and favorite computer games were always RTS games. This has always continued to be the case, despite my annoyance at a growing emphasis on multiplayer combat to the detriment of story campaigns and character development.

For me, Story is Everything.  If the game doesn’t have a strong inherent story of its own, I have to be able to make my own story for my characters. Unfortunately, a lot of the RTS games these days have forgotten story completely and don’t exactly allow you the opportunity for much story creation on your own. If there is a single-player campaign, it’s half-assed and repetitive. If there’s any story at all, it’s the exact same two paragraphs of flavor text before every battle regardless of what race you’re playing. Some games don’t have single player options at all.

So naturally, I’m more than a little excited about the grand-daddy of RTS games launching its sequel tomorrow. Blizzard has always been good with story, to the point that I continue to replay the original StarCraft campaigns to this day, in spite of the fact that my PC technology has far and away outstripped it and the only way to make it look remotely right is to play it in a tiny little window on my huge monitor.

Aliens! With Armies! Yeeeah!

Blizzard’s never exactly been original with their stories or their games. The difference is that they take what has been done and, inevitably, find some way to do it better, even if it’s something as simple as making the interface more user friendly.  The Warcraft universe is almost a direct ripoff of Warhammer 40K with some elements of Tolkien and a strangely prominent amount of Lovecraft thrown in. Starcraft, well . . . let’s face it . . . Starcraft is Aliens with armies. And without Vasquez, which is a real pity. I love Vasquez.

But while not original stories, or even original looking characters, Blizzard’s stories and characters rarely feel like they are just paper-doll placeholders. The stories actually have a proper plot arc, the characters actually grow and change. Sometimes they change into bad things, but they aren’t just static “I’m important because I’m in charge” types.  Blizzard can always be counted on for a good campaign, even when good single-player campaigns are out of fashion.

I’ve been in the beta, playing skirmish matches against other players and co-op against the computer, and I have to say that I’m very pleased with what they’ve done with the gameplay, and the graphics are wonderfully pretty without being too much of a resource hog.  Apparently the single-player campaign gameplay has been balanced separately from the PvP combat, and I’m interested to check out how they’ve done that, and what sort of difference it will make to the singleplayer game.

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A lot of feminists that I admire a great deal will tell you that women are objectified. Men expect women to dress prettily and wear makeup and do their hair, and somehow these expectations are oppressive.

And yet, we ask the same things of men. Okay, sure, we don’t ask them to wear makeup. (Or, well, most of us don’t. I’m actually oddly fond of men in makeup. And glitter. And/Or Kilts. But that’s my thing. Erm.) We giggle over the Old Spice Guy, who is  funny as hell, but he also has all of those nice rippling abs. We might complain over the amount of time it takes to go the whole nine yards, with elaborate hairdos and makeup, but we do it while gawking over men who could only look that way with hours every day spent in the gym.

And yeah, while I appreciate the aesthetic appeal of those pecks, I’ll admit that my personal weakness is a skinny, brainy guy with glasses. (Ph. D.? Hair like a Ralph Lauren model? Slightly metro? Oh my. *swoon*) I like my men well dressed, even though most of the time I’d rather be wearing jeans and a t-shirt.  Thing about all those brainy, bespectacled guys is that usually they dress pretty well, in nice button-down shirts or polos and khakis and suits. Luckily, I managed to find one of these well-dressed blokes, and he doesn’t care if I’m dressed down while he dresses up.

Thing is, why do we complain that men like for women to look pretty while expecting men to look pretty (or, erm, handsome) too? A man can be as macho as he likes, but if he smells, he’s unlikely to get a girl. On the other hand, if he smells really good, even if he’s not all that good-looking, there will be girls that sigh when he comes by.  I have seen this happen. Just ask the local FedEx guy.

We expect men to take care of themselves and look nice, and yet complain when the same is expected of us.

And I’ve always wondered why being expected to be beautiful, or being recognized for beauty, is somehow a bad thing. Sure, there are those guys who think girls only exist to look pretty, and that anything going on inside their brains or hearts is inconsequential, but those sorts of guys are the rarity these days, though it seems the beauty pageant circuit tends to cater to that sort.

I like to look pretty. While most of the time, I’m a jeans-and-t-shirt girl, my one fashion-related obsession is shoes, and I like them pretty and strappy and with heels on. And I like to dress up to have an excuse to wear those pretty shoes. I feel empowered by it, rather than objectified by it.

When I play video games, I like the fact that the character models for female characters are beautiful. In games with many varied races, you can get all sorts of beautiful. And these gorgeous characters go out there and they kick ass. They’re strong and wonderful, they’re dragonslayers and sorceresses and soldiers, but above all, they are strong. The fact that they are also beautiful does nothing to diminish that strength. This something I’ve always found rather empowering.

I also have a great love of old-school burlesque, which, yes, involves women taking off their clothes. However, it’s more about the tease than the nudity, which most of the time consists of little more than a short peak before the curtains close or the dancer dashes off stage. It’s about humor and showmanship and being comfortable in your body, which is a hard thing these days. I know it’s often been a hard thing for me.

I suppose the difference between being objectified and empowered has everything to do with the context of the situation. A woman (or man) reduced to body-parts, with no face or emotion for an advertisement, for instance, is nothing but pure object. And of course, that’s only one example.

But I’ll never be convinced that this is only a one-way thing, where women are the only ‘victims’.  Men are objectified just as often, and women pay attention to appearances just as much as men do. And never will I believe that the enjoyment of looking nice comes solely from the attention of others, sometimes it’s nice just to look in the mirror and think to yourself “Hey, I look good.”

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Sometimes even when you think your latest story is going magnificently, it doesn’t turn out to be nearly as magnificent when you go back and read over what you’ve written.

Little things, most of the time. Big things sometimes. Like how I somehow managed to completely forget plot in the middle of my new story “The Boy Ran” and somehow wrote several nearly identical chapters that could be summarized by “We woke up, we walked, we went to sleep.”

I finished the story up toward the end of last week, ending up at somewhere around 42,000 words. I usually try to put a few weeks between finishing up a story and going back to read over it again, so that it’s new and fresh to me when I start the initial proofreading process.  However, this time I tried a new writing method where I didn’t go back and read over anything at all the whole time I was writing. I’d been having a lot of little projects that I’d started and never finished – generally because I start second-guessing myself about halfway through.

So, I refused to go back and re-read while the story was in progress. I would get it finished first.  And I did. If nothing else, this method has worked to ensure that my doubts didn’t get in the way of my writing.  However, it also means that this first draft is a lot less polished than I’m used to dealing with when I go through my first proofread.

For one thing, there’s those repetitive chapters, which have now been cut out almost entirely, except for a few gems of paragraphs and dialogue that I condensed down a great deal.  I just cut almost 20,000 words out of my story at one go.

So yeah, that novel? It won’t be a novel by the time I’m done with it, I don’t think. Going back over my plot and organization, I realize that this is a story that is probably best told in a short form anyway.  It’s a departure from my usual writing, particularly considering the age of the protagonist and the prospective audience.  It’s also set in a world that is extremely close to home, dealing with some extremely difficult subjects.

I know that it’s possibly one of the most honest and difficult stories I’ve ever written. Perhaps, like dark chocolate, it is a story best enjoyed in small amounts. The words are getting in the way right now.  I’m hoping that by the time I’m done with editing (and sending it out to my betas for their critiques) that will no longer be the case.

I think I got too caught up on hitting that big word-goal and lost the focus of my story in the process.  Sometimes a story doesn’t need to have a lot of words to make a point.

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There was something rather surprising about the whole RealID fiasco (and I’m not just talking about the fact that Blizzard actually listened and changed their plans).

The overwhelming majority of people arguing against it were women. As one poster said, toward the end of the epic thread: “Who knew so many women played WoW?”

Well, I did, for one. The majority of the WoW players I know are, in fact, female. But I play primarily on Roleplaying servers, which tend to have a higher percentage of women and tend to be slightly more friendly toward female gamers. However, for some people it seemed that the fact that women play the game was a revelation, especially that women play in such large numbers. Gaming isn’t just a boys club anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time.

And then I read this over on one of the blogs that I happily discovered over the last week: “Geek Feminism as Opposed to Mainstream Feminism”

It brought up a lot of good points, one of which was that a lot of geek women learn to tolerate and even participate in the more misogynistic aspects of geek culture. It made me go back and review some of my own behavior. I didn’t like what I saw.

Like the writer, I have always been more comfortable around geek men than around non-geek women. I rarely find that I can even find common conversational ground with most non-geek women. It’s as if we speak different languages.

But I am a cisgendered – in fact often a very feminine – woman. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the typical things associated with femininity with being a geek, a skeptic, or a rational thinker, especially when you find a good many of the things that a lot of non-geek cisgendered women engage in or obsess over to be, well, rather shallow, boring, or silly.

But in branding non-geek women with those adjectives, am I, a long-time feminist, being misogynistic myself? Or worse, by becoming “one of the boys” and tolerating anti-female comments, slang, and stereotypes, have I given up my feminist ideals in favor of fitting in with other geeks? As Mary over at Geek Feminism writes:

It’s fairly common for geek ciswomen to remember a period of being actively misogynist, along the lines of: “I can see why men find women so bad, 99% of women are indeed trivial and annoying” or “I get treated in a sexist way, and it’s the fault of other women, for inviting sexist behaviour.”

Is it possible to reconcile being a feminist with also being a geek? I have to wonder why so many of those women protesting RealID seemed to feel it was okay to allow a misogynistic culture to force us into hiding our gender.  I  do understand why women might want to hide their true gender behind an avatar to avoid bias or sexual harassment, and I think that the whole RealID issue caused extreme privacy concerns  beyond that. However, I have to point out that hiding your gender to avoid harassment is the rough equivalent to just laying down and taking it.

Isn’t it better to fight the misogyny than to submit to it? To go out there and admit your femininity and then show the boys that they’re wrong. The only way that anything in the gaming community will ever change for women is if we show the community at large what is and is not acceptable behavior. As long as we keep hiding our femininity away, pretending to be one of the boys, nothing will ever change.

And so now I say: If you use hate speech of any sort, I will report you.  If you use slang which glorifies violence against women, I will report you.  If you sexually harass me, I will report you. I will not play with you. I will not hide the fact that I am a woman to avoid any of the above, because that does more to help the problem than to fix it.

And if you assume that because I am a woman, I don’t know how to play, I will pwn your ass and enjoy doing so.

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I don’t usually post here about my activities in World of Warcraft – that’s usually reserved for my WoW dedicated blog, to keep from clogging up this blog with too much WoW.  For the last six months or so, I’ve been on an extended hiatus from the game, but was planning to come back when the next expansion, Cataclysm, comes out. In fact, I was beginning to get really excited about it.

Initially the implementation of RealID in WoW didn’t worry me too much, beyond the thought that people might get annoyed with me for not friending them back. It was optional and you had control over who would have your information.

Then this happened:

The first and most significant change is that in the near future, anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name — with the option to also display the name of their primary in-game character alongside it. These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. The classic Battle.net forums, including those for Diablo II and Warcraft III, will be moving to a new legacy forum section with the release of the StarCraft II community site and at that time will also transition to using Real ID for posting.

The official forums have always been a great place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions, and share experiences with other players — however, the forums have also earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations, and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before. With this change, you’ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees) posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.

Now, I would be the first person to agree that Blizzard needs to do something about their forums, which are a haven of villainy and scum.  Since early in my first few months of playing the game, I learned to avoid the official forums like the plague. The majority of posters there have no other thought than to troll and bully people.  Over the period of time I have spent playing the game, my posts on the official forums have been limited to event announcements as guildmaster of an active roleplaying guild, bug reports, and technical support questions.  It is true that anonymity encourages the bad behavior. However, that same anonymity also helps to maintain the security and privacy of people who aren’t behaving badly.

Now, it’s not hard to find out my real name. I’ve got it all over the place. As a professional writer, it is important that I maintain a web presence under my real name in various locations and on various social networks. It’s not really something I hide all that much, and the fact that I play WoW is no great secret.  However, I do know a large number of people who have every reason in the world not to want their real names associated with their activities in an online environment, or to have strangers they might meet in that online environment know their real name.

Here are some of the problems I see immediately with this issue:

First of all, I happen to live in a state where it is still possible to be fired from your job for being gay. It is a state where violence against gays is still a major issue and there are no hate laws. In the last three months, I have seen in the news at least two unprovoked attacks against gay men in my state, one resulting in severe injury and the other, just this last weekend, only escaping injury  because the victims knew self defense techniques.

For a long time, World of Warcraft has been one of a few places where people who are still forced to be in the closet, be they gay, transgendered, or gender-queer, could be themselves without fear of real life repercussions. There are many prominent gay guilds in the game. Attaching real names to characters and guilds and removing anonymity could potentially force people out of the closet in-real-life. Many of these same people have good reason to fear not just for their jobs but also for their personal safety if their secret is exposed.

Second, I know of a number of women who purposely play male characters to avoid being harassed due to their gender. It is unfortunate, but misogyny and sexual harassment are major issues in the gaming community, and WoW has more than its fair share.  Exposing real names on the forums would also expose the gender of those who choose to play characters of opposite gender for reasons beyond “I just liked the way they looked.”  It is quite often difficult to be a woman and be a gamer – you have to constantly fight against the assumption that just because you’re a woman you can’t tank, you can’t PvP, you can’t…play as well as a male.  A lot of women have avoided this by playing male characters and pretending to be male.  There are also women who have been stalked and harassed by real-life ex-boyfriends or in-game acquaintances in the game who have escaped them by rolling new characters with new names on new servers, retreating into anonymity. Removing that anonymity would expose them to further harassment.  It could even provide a means for stalkers and rapists to locate victims. There’s a reason why we teach our young girls to keep their Facebook profiles private and to not give out personal information. To do so compromises their security and puts them in danger. It makes it easier for predators to find them.

What happens when the first murderer finds his victim through the WoW forums, Blizzard? Or the first pedophile? Because they are there. I have had personal contact (and reported on multiple occasions) at least one pedophile that is still playing the game.  What happens when the first homophobe decides to take up arms against someone that got outed on the WoW forums? With a real name, it’s not that difficult to find an address, or find out where someone works, or harass them, blackmail them, harm them.

True, murder and rape would be the most extreme potential ramifications, but they should be considered. The fact that people could lose their jobs if their identity is revealed should have been considered.

Of course, the way to keep from losing anonymity is to avoid posting on the forums at all, but where is this violation of privacy going to stop, Blizzard? And did you really want to leave a significant portion of your customer population faced with the choice between asking a tech support question and preserving their own personal safety?

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We have a black president. People like to talk about us living in a post-race society (of course we don’t…but some like to say so).  Generally, being overtly and obviously racist is Not A Done Thing. Not if you, you know, want to stay in business.

Except, apparently, in the publishing industry. Can you tell me why this keeps happening?

I’ve had this book Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon on my to-read list for a while after seeing a lot of good reviews of it and all of the awards it’s won.  It is set in what is a historically accurate pre-China. The main character is Asian.

← This is the original cover.  It’s beautiful and accurate to the book and the character.

But apparently, some book buyers in charge of acquiring books for the major chain stores insist that this cover won’t sell. They insist this often before the book ever makes it to the bookstore. Before anyone who goes into the bookstore to buy books ever has a chance to buy the book with its original multicultural cover.

The bookcover gets redesigned so it will “sell better”. Here’s the new version →

Hmm. This is a book set in historical Asia, pre-China. Why does the character appear to be wearing modern clothes? And is she Asian? You can’t really tell. She rather looks like a modern goth girl ready to go clubbing. Is this Yet Another Vampire Novel? No? Then why?

They wanted to make her look more white. It’s even more obvious on the cover for the sequel to Silver Phoenix. The model is very clearly white. There is nothing to indicate that the story is set in Asia or that the character is Asian.

If there is anything whatsoever to indicate the plot or even the feel of these novels anywhere on these new covers, I can’t find it.

If there is a picture of a character on the front of a book, I want it to reflect the character that I am reading about within the pages of that book. I want it to reflect that character’s ethnicity and beauty, regardless of whether that beauty is white.

If the character is not white, I definitely don’t want to see a white girl on the cover. This has happened again and again, and is specifically rampant in YA novels.

Why does this keep happening? When will the publishers get a fucking clue and realize that people want their literature to be just as multicolored and diverse as the world is around them?

There’s only one way to combat this sort of thing. Let the publishers know that this is absolutely unacceptable.  In this case, the publisher is Harper Collins, but they are hardly the only ones guilty. Bloomsbury has had a particular habit of doing this sort of thing. Contact them and tell them to make their covers reflect the story inside, instead of turning every character everywhere white.

But don’t stop buying the books. To do so only punishes the author and reinforces the idea that diversity in books does not sell. It cheats the author out of the royalties for what may be a very good book, regardless of what the publishers decide to put on the cover.

So I’ve had my pattern (McCalls #6097) for a bit and have finally gotten my fabric from JoAnns. Though the pattern is for a full costume, I’m only making the skirt and bustle to go with my wonderful map-canvas corset and a bodice I already have to go under it.

There was a little bit of a hiccup when JoAnns turned out to be out of stock for the antique gold fabric I ordered for the bustle, but fortunately I always order an extra yard anyway, so I didn’t come up too short. I spent last night tracing out and cutting my pattern pieces to get ready to start sewing. I’m saving any significantly sized scraps, and it looks like I’ll probably have enough left over to make a matching Tiny Tophat and maybe add some extra embellishments here and there. I’ve dismantled an old wind-up clock I found to cannibalize the gears and such for some added personality to the dress. The costume satin is gorgeous for the price, and fairly lightweight, so it shouldn’t be too hot even in Georgia in late August. It also seems to hold up fairly well and not pull easily.

I still need to pick out a trim, probably something in black lace (my corset is an ivory/tan map with a black lining, so I’ll need some black in the skirt somewhere).

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll actually make the train. It is detachable, but walking around Con with a train is a bit impractical.  As far as shoes go, while I have some wonderful ladies boots that would fit the outfit extremely well, I’m probably going to wear my converse with some spats over them – Comfortable Shoes make Happy Con-Goers – and it’s not like anyone will really see my shoes anyway.

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